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The museums, the machines and the men and women who worked it out: laboratories kept as they were, beam engines under steam, the tunnel, the barrier, the roofs, and the plaques on the houses where the ideas came.
The waterworks that pumped west London's water, with the largest collection of Cornish beam engines anywhere, steamed on set weekends.
MuseumsEngines & pumpingGo inside
Also in Museums.
The Grand Junction Waterworks Company opened its pumping station at Kew Bridge in 1838, taking water from the Thames for Paddington and Kensington, and for a century its beam engines lifted it into the mains; the Italianate tower beside the road, which looks like a campanile, is the standpipe that took the surge. When the pumps went electric the engines were left where they stood, and volunteers opened the museum in 1975. It holds the largest collection of Cornish engines in the world, the tall single-cylinder pumping engines that Cornish tin mines perfected, among them the 90-inch of 1846, for years the biggest working beam engine anywhere, and the 100-inch of 1869, the largest single-cylinder beam engine left on earth. The galleries tell how London got clean water and why cholera stopped; the engines run in steam on set weekends, which is the day to come, with a narrow-gauge waterworks railway in the yard for children.
| Monday | Closed |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | Closed |
| Wednesday | Closed |
| Thursday | 10:00 – 16:00 |
| Friday | 10:00 – 16:00 |
| Saturday | 10:00 – 16:00 |
| Sunday | 10:00 – 16:00 |
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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.